


always in the last place you look

by hydrospanners



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Inquisitor Backstory, Shameless Self-Indulgence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 20:49:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14197422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrospanners/pseuds/hydrospanners
Summary: Raising children is hard. Raising Niria Adaar is almost impossible.





	always in the last place you look

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr.

Ten families, ten small huts. Anina was almost too small to even be called a village, but it was big enough to hide a child. They’d been searching for hours–-in the fields, under beds, on the boats–-without so much as a clue to where Niria had gone. She would have thought an eight year old Qunari would be easier to find.

“She won’t have gone far without her brother,” Lis’ accent was thick with concern. It was always like that with her; the more distressed she was, the more Orlesian she sounded.

Ria was known for her wandering off, but she’d never gone missing for this long or been this hard to find. Ranna couldn’t help fearing the worst. Thedas was not kind to little girls with horns, especially ones with magic.

“I’m telling you,” Deirin cut in, “just follow the fire, and that’s where she’ll be. Same place as always.”

“Thank you, Deirin,” Ranna snarled. “That was both helpful and reassuring.”

“You don’t pay me to be reassuring,” he grumbled. “Besides, I’m sure the kid’s fine.”

He was the only one. Looking at her crew’s faces, Ranna could see they all shared her concern. They understood what it meant to be alone in a world that belonged to humans.

“You don’t think one of the villagers–”

Lis’ question was interrupted by a knock at the door. Ranna answered it with sword in hand.

“I believe this belongs to you,” Qarric said without preamble, nudging a dirty but apparently unharmed child across the threshold. Niria’s big blue eyes glistened with tears that said she knew what she’d done, but there was no apology in the firm line of her mouth, no regret in the stubborn set of her shoulders.

Looking back to Qarric, Ranna understood.

“She came to me,” the old apostate explained. “Damn near burned my house down, too.”

Deirin snorted, but had the wisdom to swallow his words. Ranna was not in the mood.

What had Kaari been thinking, sending these children to her? She was no Tamassran. No Arvaarad. She was Tal-Vashoth, and not even very good at that. This life was meant to bring freedom, but all she’d found was a different set of chains.

“You and I should speak privately, Qunari.”

Ranna nodded. She knelt before her best friend’s daughter, eyes stinging with relief she should not have felt. Now was not the time for tenderness. “We will speak later, Vitari,” she promised. “You will not like what I have to say.”

Though her tears threatened to spill over, Niria nodded resolutely. She did not flinch and she did not apologize. “Can I see Ries?”

“Yes.” She glanced at Deirin, who took his cue only after Lis shoved him from his chair.

“C’mon kid,” he took Ria by the shoulder, “let’s tell the people Ranna ain’t gonna kill 'em after all.”

Qarric watched them leave wordlessly, his lined face impassive as ever. The old codger had to be pissed, but there was never any telling with him. She’d met stones with more emotional range.

“Let’s get this over with then.”

The old apostate arched a brow at Lis, who lingered even as the rest of the crew fled, but did not repeat his dismissal. “You can guess what the girl came to me about,” he said.

Ranna nodded.

“I don’t know what you told her, Qunari, but she was under the impression I was taking her from her brother.” The lines in the old man’s face deepened with a disapproving frown. “She begged me to take the both of them. Promised me five sovereigns to take her and her brother away from you, to get them as far as Ayesleigh. Said she could take it from there.”

Ranna’s heart clenched. Distantly, she was aware of Lis’ fingers wrapping around hers, of her own shallow breathing and a stinging behind her eyes. It all seemed very far away.

Ranna knew she was not particularly motherly. She’d known it since she was twelve years old and assigned to the Ben-Hassrath instead of the Tamassrans. She  _knew_  she wasn’t what those children needed.

Why, then, did it hurt so much to hear it? Why did her heart break to hear how desperate her little Vitari was to be free of her?

“I don’t know how you ox-men raise your calves–”

“Her name is Ranna,” Lis snapped. “And those children are not livestock.”

Qarric nodded, his frown relaxing. “One of you gives a damn then,” he said. “Good.”

She could feel Lis bristling beside her, her short fuse already spent. Pompous fucking mage. He’d already made it perfectly clear he didn’t give two shits about the kids or Ranna or anyone but himself and his precious freedom. What gave him the right to come here and judge them now?

“That little girl has incredible potential. Do you realize that?”

“I have eyes,” Ranna snarled, though she hadn’t realized that. She’d always made it a point to know as little about magic as possible.

“If her brother is at all like her–-That’s a great deal of power, Qunari. Are you prepared for that?”

“No.” Lis’ hand clenched hers tightly, hot and sweaty and trembling with anger. Ranna was angry too. “But it doesn’t matter,” she said, resolute. “I’ll get prepared. I’ll learn what I have to learn. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

She only realized the truth as she spoke it, and the truth was that she couldn’t give those kids up. Maybe they were better off without her, but Kaari had sent them to Ranna for a reason. She must have seen something, must have known–-

“These are my kids now,” she said, “and you aren’t taking them. I don’t care how much magical potential you see.”

Qarric only nodded, taking her about-face in stride. The bastard never let anything ruffle his feathers. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“That why you came all the way to Anina? To hear me say I want the kids?”

“Of course not,” Qarric said. “I came to tell you I’m joining your crew.”

“Over my de–-”

“Ranna,” Lis’ grip relaxed, her thumb running circles over the back of Ranna’s hand. “Wait.”

The old mage politely dipped his head in thanks. “As I said last night, I cannot give those children the love or the home they require. What I  _can_  offer is training. Training they will sorely need.”

Ranna glanced down at Lis, at her eyes wide with hope and relief, all that rage already forgotten. How could she be mad when everything they’d never dared to ask for suddenly seemed possible?

They could be a family.

 

#  #  #

 

When it was all settled, she found Niria on the shore. She poked glumly through a pile of washed-up weeds, tense under the weight of Deirin’s suspicious eye. He nodded at Ranna’s approach, eagerly taking his cue to leave.

“You scared me today, Vitari.” Niria ignored her, kicking at the sand and looking anywhere else. There was hurt between them now; it would not be easy to repair. “I thought someone had taken you from me.”

Ranna knew what words would follow, knew what question she would have to ask, but seeing a knife coming never made the cut sting less.

“Why do you care?” Ria raised her eyes, the same startling blue as Kaari’s. “You tried to get rid of me.”

A Tamassran would have known what to say. The right words to explain what she’d done without breaking Niria’s heart, but Ranna was no Tamassran. All she had was the truth. So she knelt on the sand before her best friend’s daughter and did not fight the tears in her eyes. “I wasn’t getting rid of you, Vitari. I was trying to give you your best life.”

“My life is with Ries,” Niria said immediately. Certain. Defiant.

Ranna nodded. “That’s why I was going to send him with you.”

This gave her pause. “You were?”

“Of course, Vitari. Your brother needs Qarric’s help too.”

“Why can’t  _you_  help us?”

Eight years old was too young for a truth like this, too young to worry about mage hunters and hateful humans and the Qun. Eight years old was too young to worry about anything.

But it was too late for that. It was too late for Niria the day her mother left home.

“Where I come from, Vitari, we were taught to fear magic. We treated mages as animals and gave the Arvaarad their leashes.” Ranna hesitated, swallowing back her shame. A Tamassran would have done this better. 

“Is that why you want to give us away?” Niria held her gaze, but the defiance had bled from her voice. She sounded small and uncertain. Afraid. “I promise we won’t hurt you.”

Ranna reached out to the girl, gratified when Ria shuffled into her embrace. There was hurt between them now, but there was also hope. “I don’t fear you, Vitari, but I do fear  _for_  you. Magic is dangerous, and I don’t know how to protect you from it.”

Niria only nodded, like she understood the danger perfectly well. Perhaps she did. Ranna still hadn’t learned what happened to her mother.

“I thought you would be safer with Qarric,” she explained. “He can teach you to protect yourself, to use your magic and be strong. I thought that was better.”

Ranna pulled away, tilting Niria’s face up so they could look one another in the eye. This was important. “I was wrong, Vitari. I thought you belonged with someone who understood you, but you don’t. You belong with someone who loves you. You belong with family.” Ranna sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. No going back now.

“You belong with me.”


End file.
